Medway Academy Conversion: Four Primaries, 1,529 Pupils

Four Medway primary schools stopped being council schools on 1 September. Between them they teach 1,529 children.

Swingate Primary in Lordswood, Burnt Oak Primary in Gillingham, and Horsted Infant and Horsted Junior in Chatham all closed as community schools on 31 August 2026 and reopened the next day as academies. All four joined a single trust, THE BLUEBELL MAT.

Ofsted published the academy conversion letters for all four on 4 September (Ofsted provider page, Burnt Oak Primary School). The Department for Education’s register records the change for each one (Get Information about Schools).

The four schools

Each school kept its name, its building and its head. What changed is who runs it and where the money comes from.

Two things stand out from the register.

All four are over capacity. Together they hold 1,529 pupils in 1,478 places. That is not unusual in Medway’s popular primaries, but it is worth knowing if you are applying for a place.

They are very different schools. Burnt Oak’s share of pupils eligible for free school meals is 42.5%, six times Horsted Infant’s 6.9%, and the two schools sit about three and a half miles apart. The figures are the DfE’s, taken from the spring school census.

None of them was in trouble

An “inadequate” Ofsted judgement forces a council school to become an academy (gov.uk, types of school). That is not what happened here.

All four were last inspected as good. The DfE register gives the reason for each conversion as “Academy Converter”, the category used when a school chooses to convert, rather than a sponsored conversion imposed after a poor judgement.

Swingate’s most recent report goes further than good. Inspectors wrote after their visit on 1 and 2 May 2024: “the evidence gathered suggests that the inspection grade might be outstanding if a graded (section 5) inspection were carried out now” (Ofsted, Inspection of a good school: Swingate Primary School).

Horsted Junior’s 2023 report found that “pupils achieve highly”, including pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (Ofsted, September 2023).

The trust is under three months old

THE BLUEBELL MAT was incorporated at Companies House on 25 June 2026, company number 17300790. It is a private company limited by guarantee, and its registered office is care of Swingate Primary School, Sultan Road, Chatham ME5 8TJ (Companies House). Its first set of accounts will cover the period to 31 August 2027.

The DfE register lists it as a multi-academy trust, UID 17891, with exactly four academies, all in Medway (Get Information about Schools, group page).

The four schools were already working together before this. Burnt Oak and Swingate both publish pages for The Bluebell Federation, the hard federation that put them under one governing body, and Burnt Oak’s website still carries the consultation documents from when it joined (Burnt Oak Primary School). The conversion turns that federation into a trust.

None of the four school websites carried an announcement about the conversion when we checked on 14 September, and the trust does not yet have a website of its own.

What it means for you

If your child is at one of the four, the day to day will feel much the same. The legal position has changed in ways that matter later:

• Funding comes direct from government now, not through Medway Council. Academies “receive funding directly from the government and are run by an academy trust” (gov.uk).
• The trust can set its own term dates and does not have to follow the national curriculum. Most converters keep both, but the freedom is real and it is the trust’s to use.
• Accountability sits with the trust board now. Medway Council no longer holds the budget or employs the staff. The DfE register records no governance information for THE BLUEBELL MAT as things stand, so its trustees are not yet named there.
• You still apply through Medway Council for a place. Government guidance is blunt about it: “You apply through your local council even if you’re applying for schools in another council area” (gov.uk, apply for a primary school place).

If you want to check any of this yourself rather than take our word for it, the DfE register is public and free. Search the school by name at Get Information about Schools and the record shows the type, the trust, the capacity and the conversion date.

For the practical Medway information that has not changed, see our guides to Medway planning applications and council tax bands.

Sources

• Get Information about Schools: Swingate Primary School, URN 152591
• Get Information about Schools: THE BLUEBELL MAT, UID 17891
• Companies House: THE BLUEBELL MAT, 17300790
• Ofsted provider pages for the four schools and their predecessor records
• gov.uk, Types of school: academies